Fade Away
by Mind's Odyssey
Summary: Steal the weapon and escape * Time is running out * You've been treating her quite harsh, you know * Do you think you can stop me? Foolish girl * Hurry! * What's going on? Where's she? * Run! * What was he thinking? * Don't leave me! * No wonder they say human only knew to cherish when they lost something * He faded away. He's gone. Gone… (AU) Saïx one shot. Rated T just in case.


**Kingdom Hearts One Shots Series  
****07 – Fade Away**

Pairing: Saïx x Reader

In a busy town, there stood a tall building among the others. The people there called it the Memory's Skyscraper. But, no one had ever been into there before, save the employees. People normally didn't have anything to do in there, so they didn't mind the strong security forces at any entrances of the building. But one night, two people were trying to infiltrating the mysterious building…

She and her partner, Saïx, had been hiding in the shadows for a while and waited for the eventual night shift of the guards. Humans need some break anyways. And after days of observations, they found out that there would be a short absence of security guards at the back door back in an alley. When the clock ticked at the right time, the standing guard stretched himself to relieve the tried muscles, and then he left. Now was the time for action!

They sneaked out from behind the big trashcan and hurried over to the back door. Unlike any back door she came across, this one was locked. She quickly took out a metal paper clip and twisted it to form some shape of a key tooth. She skillfully inserted it into the keyhole and started to pick the lock. Fortunately the door gave way as soon as she thought. Without wasting any time, she and Saïx entered the building, and she shut the door behind her quickly, not forgetting to lock it up again.

"Phew! We're finally in the Memory's Skyscraper!" she sighed, looking at the ceiling and then the surroundings. They were now in the emergency exit pathway, and they were at the bottommost floor. Looking up, she saw a never ending string of stairs, spiraling to the top. Saïx said to his intercom with his usual calm voice, "We're in the building now."

Soon, the intercom responded, "Good. Now I repeat the mission briefing: Steal the secret weapon the enemies are making and escape. From the intel collected, it is believed that the target is in a lab somewhere in the building. Sadly, the exact location of the lab is unknown." The intercom was connected to hers as well, so she could hear the voice too. The speaker was Larxene, who was an expert in cracking codes and hacking, she also had a knack in operating most complicated electronic devices. The organization they joined was lucky to have her in their arsenal.

She shrugged and said, "Well, we could always sneak in deeper and look for the directory. We should be able to find the target in no time." Saïx said to her, with a slightly disapproving look on his face, "That way would divulge us to the enemies. We should avoid all unnecessary risks possible." "… OK, fine then…" she muttered. Then, he walked up the stairs, she quickly followed him.

Now wasn't a good time to argue with him. This deal was serious, if they both failed, the world, if not, the organization is going down. Saïx said while looking around to make sure no one other than them was here, "The weapon is currently set to trials, if the weapon experiment proved successful, then all of us would be in danger." "How so?" she asked, looking at him, observing his movements. "From what I know, the weapon is designed to too normal to distinguish from normal things we encounter in our daily lives. But I don't know how exactly normal it is. But since the trials are still running, then maybe we still have some time left."

"Whoa, how did you know all of this?" she asked in awe, she was only told to go on this mission, nothing else. Heck, she only knew the mission briefing, which was told earlier! She didn't even know the weapon was their target until just now. He merely looked at her and said emotionlessly, "Work harder and it'll pay off." Upon hearing that, she could sense the condescending snide directed at her. "Pfft, typical workaholic…" she scoffed mentally. But, strangely, that was what made she liked him; dependable and reliable. Although he seemed not to care at all, he was always there to watch her back. She could always count on him.

Well, brushing aside those positive qualities, he was downright stern, harsh and too cold towards others. So, she didn't really consider him as a close friend. Actually, she didn't even know whether he was her friend, seeing he didn't return the friendly act. "Look on the bright side, with him beside me, missions are bound to be much easier. Unlike Demyx…" she cringed mentally when she recalled Demyx slacking off too much on a mission and almost got the both of them killed. Sure, he was a kind person, but maybe he wasn't cut out for missions…

Speaking of which, since Saïx, the second-in-command, also came along with her on this mission, then it could only mean shit just got real, big time. He normally wouldn't go on missions but do paperwork. Suddenly, she was pushed to the wall, with her back against it. She was about to protest, he silenced her with a warning, "Quiet, I heard something." Without looking at her, he scanned around and she also looked at the walls around. She spotted a black security camera, which was pretty obvious with the walls painted white and the bright lighting. And right below the lenses of the camera was a laser gun, emitting infrared lasers with a small machine whirring noise. The infrared lasers formed a barricade on the stairs, blocking them from continue walking. Oh great…

"Larxene, there is an infrared laser gun in the vicinity, we can't proceed without setting the alarms off," he said to the intercom. Larxene replied after some thinking, "If so, then you guys must be quite near to the target. I need to check the map, for I only get to connect to the satellite minutes ago." Approximately one minute later, she replied, "There is an authorized pass security device somewhere in the area that would disable the lasers and open a door to the main building, but to reach there, you would have to get through the lasers. Don't ring any bells."

Once Larxene finished, she smirked slightly and said, "Then allow me to go forth." She was quite small in frame, so she was very confident of her agility and nimbleness. She assessed the situation; the lasers formed crisscrosses that left little space for a human to pass through. She couldn't pass straight through it, but that didn't mean she couldn't pass _around_ it. She spotted the railing of the stairs which were free of lasers and she gripped onto it, with her body dangling outside of the staircase. With one quick swing, she swung herself sideways and while in midair, she twisted sideways, so that she was back onto the stairs. But the only difference was that she was behind the laser barricade now, with Saïx at the other side.

That wasn't too hard, and she was not going to get bested yet. He saw her smirk, but he merely shrugged slightly. She walked a few more steps forward and she found said device beside a grey door, after a good look at it, she said to him, "Hey, it needs a PIN number." Saïx thought about it and asked her from afar, "What kind of a device it is?" She replied, still looking at the device situated on the wall, "Touch-screen, and it needs four digits." Then she turned to look at him, he was thinking hard, and he spun around and started to scrape something off the wall beside him, using a small brush. Some dust came off and he collected it in a small plastic bag. Later, he threw the bag over the laser barricade to her, which she caught effortlessly. She was about to ask, but Saïx added just in time, "Apply the dust on the screen."

Though slightly skeptical, she still obeyed his orders; he was still her second boss anyway. She used the brush found inside the plastic bag to apply some dust onto the screen of the device and she blew the excessive dust away. And now she knew why; Saïx intended to use the dust to make the fingerprints visible on the screen, thanks to the grease left behind. Many fingerprints overlapped each other, but they were evenly distributed on four different numbers on the screen. "We only have three tries here, and I don't know the sequence!" she said. "I don't know… you would have to look for clues then," said Larxene via the intercom. She sighed and started to look around again, this time, her eyes caught sight of a clock on the wall. She stared at it, wondering, and then she asked out loud, "Hey, Saïx, what's the time now?" "… 7:13 p.m. Why?" Saïx answered, but proceeded to ask her.

She wondered out loud, "The clock seemed strange…" He averted his gaze to the clock, and sure enough, the hour and minute hands of the clock both overlapped each other, pointing at the number 6 (impossible to form), not even twitching an inch to indicate the flow of time. She suddenly had an idea, "How about 1830? Since the 24-hour time of half past six is 1830 hours." Before Saïx could voice anything, she pressed the numbers "1", "8", "3" and "0" in the correct order. Thankfully, the device beeped once and the words "Authorization Recognized" appeared on the output screen, and the door beside the device clicked once and opened slightly. "Phew!" she let out a sigh of relief. When she looked back, the lasers were long gone, and Saïx was walking to her quickly. When he got to her, he said, "Don't waste anymore time, let's enter."

When they closed the door, they found themselves at the end of a dimly-lit long corridor. Out of the blue, he said quietly, "Not bad for a rookie, I must say." She was surprised, but she shrugged and said, "Nah, you just need some imagination to do the trick." "… Whatever." Reaching a corner of the dark corridor which led to the main square of the building, they stopped, hiding in the shadows once again. "Where to now? The lab or what?" she whispered. Larxene's voice appeared again, "The lab is too well-hidden, not only there were strong physical securities, even all the electronic devices connected to it were strongly protected. I need more time to hack this stuff to get the exact location. Maybe you guys would need to get some first-hand intelligence for the meantime."

She stifled a slap to her forehead and grumbled softly, "Seriously, we'd been collecting as much info as we can for the past few days or so, we still need more?" Saïx dismissed her complaints, "Past experiences told me the more we know about this, the more advantageous our situation is. Now stop complaining and let's go. We could need some escape routes when there's an emergency." Unfortunately, the both of them could barely move around much, seeing as there were too many guards patrolling around. Saïx seriously had no idea how to slip past without them noticing.

"Great, there's so many of them…" he muttered, still scanning the area with his orange eyes. She tapped his shoulder softly and said, "Wanna see the map?" "… _What_?" He was clearly not anticipating that from her, how did she…? She could see the disbelief all over his face, so she admitted, "I smuggled a brochure of the map of the building while you're looking for the back door earlier… He he." She ended it with a nervous laugh. "…" He stared at her, then at the paper in her hands. He reached out to it, which she handed in willingly but apprehensively. He sped through the whole layout real quick, and he commented, "Quite complete, except for the lab, each and every route is clear. Not bad…" She scratched her head and said, "Is that all you can say? Not bad?"

He remained silent. Seconds later, she felt another idea popping into her head. You told him quietly, "Say, how about we go to the boss's office straightaway?" This time, she swore, without his great self-control, he would've roared at her and burst her poor eardrums, "What?! Are you insane?!" Not daring enough to look into his intense eyes, she felt herself shrinking with each word she spoke, "Well, there could be good resources regarding the lab's whereabouts…" "Yeah, there are also good securities and a good chance of getting caught." She retorted, "Hey, no need to be so harsh, I'm just suggesting and all, you know." But somehow, he didn't seem to want to let this matter slip easily, "And putting the Organization on a big risk."

She could feel the flames of war ignited, and they were almost engaged in a quarrel, but Larxene seemed to have chosen quite a perfect time to interrupt, "Saïx, I need your help." They let the fight dissipate their throats while Larxene continued, "I almost got my hands on the exact lab location, but before I could fully crack it, I need some sort of password that can be found somewhere in the main parts of the building. Split up if necessary, okay?" Then, silence engulfed the both of them for some time… Finally, he spoke to her in a low tone, "You better don't run off somewhere doing something crazy. Time is running out, we will split up now." She had nothing to say but to agree with him, "…Fine."

So, the they went opposite directions. When she got further, she glanced around cautiously, and a smirk appeared on her lips. She had wanted to sneak off since earlier, and the opportunity just came to her. "As if I'm going to take all orders from you. Sorry, Saïx. Now, let's head to this boss's office…" She was lucky to have gotten away, but now she was pouting at the sight of the patrolling guards. She thought, "Whoa, there are guards everywhere, how should I slip past?" She was about to meet her wit's end, just then a guard stopped in his tracks, and to her relief, he was just answering the voice from his walkie-talkie. She thought he discovered her, even though she was well-hidden in the shadows as usual. "Hey, the boss wants to see you in his office, now," said the voice from the device, and the guard replied immediately, "Yes, sir." And then, he trotted off to his destination right away.

"Sweet! Now's my chance! Today's just my day after all," she cheered internally. Without further ado, she tracked the guard down by following him from a distance. And when he turned into a dark corner, she sneaked up on him and knocked him unconscious. And then she dragged him into the janitor's room nearby. She took off his coat and put it on, adding another layer to her outfit. She also grabbed his guns and walkie-talkie. Now she wouldn't need to keep herself away from the people in this building for the meantime. While she was making her way to the boss's office as "instructed", she tried to walk like a man, but gosh, the guns were heavier than she had expected. She so wanted to ask for directions, but her voice would be a dead giveaway to her identity. She was beginning to think maybe her rash act was just a stupid plan after all, but she just happened to found what she was looking for – the directory. "… I should've ignored him in the first place…"

Meanwhile, Saïx asked Larxene via the intercom, "What kind of hint are you talking about?" "I just caught some wind of it, something like the color of the boss's name carved on his statue, maybe… it's at the lobby?" said Larxene, tapping away on the keyboard. Saïx tried to stifle the surfacing headache by pinching the bridge of his nose, he grumbled, "Then it should be at the ground floor. This is the seventh floor for god's sake…" With that being said, he slipped back to the emergency exit you two took earlier. While he was going down the stairs, Larxene asked, "Say, why is it so quiet? Where's she?" "We split up, what's wrong?" he merely said it dismissively, like it was normal. Larxene paused for a few seconds before saying, "Well, she's bound to do something crazy though."

"… She'd better not."  
"She wants to prove herself useful to you."

"You've been treating her quite harsh, you know what? She's only a rookie."  
"Whatever…"

Before he knew it, he was already arriving at the door to the lobby. He pushed the door open gently and slightly, not wanting to draw any attention. The lobby is quite bright and grand, and the door was hidden somewhere behind the large stairs. He made sure the coast was clear and then he moved stealthily to hide behind some tall plants. He peeked through the green leaves obscuring his frame, and there was the bronze statue in question. It stood high at the middle of the lobby, reflecting some light off its metal surface. Not that Saïx was fazed anyways; the statue depicted a man who destroyed his family, destroyed his beloved ones, and wanted to destroy the world.

He continued to peek around carefully, and he spotted some security cameras guarding the vacant lobby. "I'd have to use the gadgets then," he thought, pulling out a small robot fly out of his pocket. As in the movies, this robot fly had a built-in camera that could enable the user to see faraway things via it. He let it flew to the statue's bottom, and the name "Xehanort" came into view after he put on his electronic goggles. "Larxene, it's white." "… Okay, now that we have the password, I'll just need some time to hack…"

* * *

She knocked on the big wooden door and the voice inside granted the permission for entry. She walked into the room after opening the door, and closed it soon after she got in. Amidst the various things she expected to see in one's office, the only thing she focused on at the moment was the big chair in front of her. The boss, who she presumed to be sitting on said chair, had his back against her, thus she could only see the back of the chair behind the office desk full of papers and filed documents. He didn't even turn around to face her, but he did start to give out long-winded lectures and speeches. Soon, she began to observe the new surroundings; strangely enough, there were no security cameras; that could only mean either extra relaxation, or extra caution.

She thought she could make out some info as to where the lab was by glancing around, but it seemed she would have to wait till she saw a chance. Still, something behind her mind was bugging her to just force it out of him. She couldn't help it; the man before her took everything away from her; her family, friends, home – everything, until she was taken into the Organization and learned about his plan to destroy the world with a crazy unknown weapon. Alas, her patience wore off and she decided to force your way through. She grabbed one of the guns she stole from the real guard and pointed it at him, threatening, "Too bad, old man, today's not exactly a good day for speeches, so how about you save it as your last words?"

The boss shut up immediately, and she added, "We need to talk, and maybe I'll let you go if I'm satisfied." Suddenly, the boss, Xehanort spun his chair around to face her, with another gun. His menacing features didn't change a bit since the last time she saw him, which was quite a couple of years ago. An evil smirk played on his lips and he said, "Do you think you can stop me? Foolish girl." Right after the words left his mouth, he pulled the trigger and a bullet shot out with a deafening bang. Nevertheless, she was quick enough to dodge, she ducked and the bullet hit the metal frame of a picture hanging on the wall behind her. All she heard was successive noises of the bullet colliding with another metal surface. And when she looked up again, she tried to hold her jaw in its original position – Somehow, someway, Xehanort was bleeding from his chest due to a bullet shot. He glared hard at her and he collapsed onto the floor. And then a trapdoor sound was heard, and the boss disappeared to beneath the floor. She was bewildered; she didn't even fire a shot all this while!

Still stunned, she only managed to snap back to reality when she heard all doors and windows clicked and slammed shut, locking up in the process. She was trapped! "What…?!" She could only exclaim out loud. She glanced around her frantically to search for a possible opening, she wasn't even going to be picky enough to care even if it's a rabbit hole now, but she was completely shut off from the outside – isolated…

* * *

"… Got it!" said Larxene, Saïx swore for a moment he could feel she was smirking at the other end of the intercom. She continued, "The location -" But, before she could finish, a loud intermittent beeping noise was heard, and Larxene almost cursed under her breath. Almost immediately, she warned, "Saïx, get into the main building, quick!" He was halfway in the emergency exit area when he heard her. He wanted to question her sudden change of tone, but she sounded serious, so questions would have to be postponed until later.

Saïx ran up the stairs, the shortest route he opted for was to head straight to the first floor. Hopefully where he was going to emerge later would be free of people, or else trouble's on the way. Larxene was getting anxious, she demanded, "You have three more seconds before you are trapped! Hurry!" Saïx wasn't very pleased to say the least to be ordered around by someone from a lower rank, still he increased his speed. He managed to scrape through just as the crucial three seconds ticked past when he ran into the dark corridor from the door. And to his astonishment, the door slammed shut automatically, and a click was heard, telling him it was locked. He took a few seconds to regain his normal breathing rate, and then he asked with a dead serious face, "Larxene, _what's_ going on?"

Larxene seemed to let out a small sigh of relief, and then she replied, "I'm not sure, but just as I had cracked the location of the lab, suddenly a window popped up, saying the whole system and building is locking down in one minute. And what's worse, all my working progress is gone." Saïx then said to himself, "So there's no escape routes left… Just what I need." "Wait a minute, if this whole thing is locked down…" said Larxene, but she came to a pause when a gasp escaped her. "Where's she?" Saïx asked out of the blue, as if sensing what the girl would ask. "… Topmost floor… the boss's office!"

Saïx nearly cursed. And without thinking, unlike his usual personality, he sprinted for the other staircase after making sure the coast was clear. "She just had to ignore my orders and risk the Organization… and herself!" he thought angrily as he sped through. His legs were almost wasted when he finally set foot at the last step of the stairs. There was only one room in this floor, situated at the end of the hallway. He noticed the metal plate on the door that had the boss's name carved on it. He looked at the door, trying to figure out how he should break in. But he decided to use force in the end, hoping it wouldn't take too long. He punched, kicked, even threw himself at the door, but it didn't budge at all, thanks to the lockdown.

She was just thinking about how to escape, and she heard something, or someone banging and hitting the office door. She started to panic and held her gun with her trembling hands, pointing at the door. Whatever or whoever came in later was going to get it. After three more attempts, the door was finally busted open, and Saïx had to bite back a surprised gasp when he evaded an incoming bullet. She couldn't believe who she saw, but out of instinct, she started screaming. Saïx was startled by her, but he came over quickly and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her in attempts to "wake" her up. "Hey! Calm down! It's me!"

Like magic, her screams stopped. She stared at him with her eyes widened, and then her eyes started to well up with tears, which panicked Saïx instead. He tried to coax her, "Hey, it's alright now… it's only me, okay?" Although his voice was as emotionless as ever, she didn't care anyway. She wiped the tears away with the back of her right hand, and said, "Sorry… but, we have to get out of here before the guards come…" Saïx looked down, breaking eye contact and he said, "We cannot go out via the route I used earlier, we would surely get caught." And then he squeezed her shoulders softly and added, "So try to look for any secret passages."

For the next three minutes, they looked around, and she told him with whatever happened after they parted ways. She could see Saïx had a surprised expression flashed on his face when she told him the boss was shot by himself. But now's not the suitable time to ponder on that. Saïx asked the intercom, "Larxene, how do we escape now?" "Thankfully, the map of Memory's Skyscraper is still intact. I could still locate you two, but the signal's weaker than before. If I'm haven't mistaken, there should be a secret trapdoor in this room… try the couch." Larxene said, looking at the screen before her.

Saïx wasted no time in pushing the couch in question away, revealing a large round trapdoor. There was a seal in the middle, with the "pi" sign on it. Below the sign was a black screen, with ten straight lines flickering, and below the screen was the keypad. "Oh crap, my math is an epic fail ever since I entered school!" she exclaimed and smacked a palm onto her face. "Ten digits, let's see… If I recall… 3.14159…" mumbled Saïx thoughtfully, while entering the digits one by one. He paused at the eighth one, and Larxene added, "It's 256 for the last three digits!" She asked, "Whoa, Larx, you seriously memorized the whole thing?" "Nope, but having a scientific calculator around you is definitely a good thing…"

With those numbers keyed in, the numbers flashed once and the screen blacked out. And then the trapdoor popped open like a lid from a teapot. Saïx looked at her for a second and then he jumped into the trapdoor, which she followed later. The trapdoor tunnel wasn't too narrow like she expected it to be when she first saw it. And soon, they landed on the floor safely, although… she ended up falling onto him. She blushed and quickly pushed herself up, she looked elsewhere to prevent him from seeing her face. He grunted and got up as well. He looked around, and as soon as she felt better, she started to take in all the details of the surroundings; they were now in a white room, but the lighting wasn't bright enough, there was only blue light emitting from the floor. It's as if they entered the land of computer or something. There were also a lot of science apparatus neatly arranged on the shelves and tables. The largest table in the middle of the room had some beakers and flasks, which were set up in an experiment, boiling some nameless liquid. The smell of disinfectant was also in the vicinity. No doubt, they were in the lab!

She whispered while walking towards the table, "I don't believe this… and here we are, in this wretched lab…" Saïx was going to check around as well, but a door's click could be heard clearly. "Hide, someone's coming!" he whispered harshly, pulling her down to hide under a random table. Her left arm was aching from the sudden tug by his firm grip, but she couldn't whine at the moment, for two scientists walked in. They were discussing about something, so they kept really quiet to eavesdrop their conversation.

"So, how's the progress?"  
"It's all set, it is successful. All we need to do now is to let it cool in the freezer room over there."  
"Good, since the guards demanded us to leave at once. There's something about intruders out there…"  
"So tomorrow we would show it to the boss?"  
"Yeah. Hey, let's get out, or else the guards are going to bark at us again."  
"Okay."

After their short conversation, footsteps were heard and the door clicked again. "How strange… why haven't they realized the boss was history?" she wondered. And then Saïx nudged her left arm, and he waved his hand slightly at her to tell her it's safe to come out now. When she got out, he said to her, "The weapon's in the freezer room, let's go." "What? Oh… sure." It wasn't too hard to locate the room in this lab; it was labeled with capitals on the door for Kingdom Hearts' sake. She tried to pull the metal door open, but it didn't move an inch. "What the…?" She said, still pulling. The door magnet sure was strong. And then she felt a tap on her shoulder, so she let go of the door handle to see Saïx behind her. He merely pointed at a small device somewhere behind him, it read "Freezer Room Entrance Button".

"…" She felt her face heat up a little for making herself a fool in front of him. He rolled his eyes and headed for the button, pressing it. As soon as he pressed it, a faint clank was heard from behind the door, and it jerked open a little. She then pulled it open, and what greeted her was a wave of icy air. She had to rub her arms to heat herself up. "This surely isn't the freezer room for nothing… so cold." She thought, trying to see through the layer of icy air that obscured the space in the room. Again, lasers were discovered inside, and she could make out a shadow in the middle of the freezer room. She would have to pass through them to get near. She sighed, "Okay, my turn…"

She started to make her way to the shadow by avoiding the lasers. Thankfully they weren't moving around, so she just needed to steer clear of the infrared lines. But she wanted to get rid of them, so she headed for the laser control button instead. Larxene spoke via the intercom again, "Hey, where are you guys? I lost connection with you all just now, and now I couldn't locate the both of you!" Saïx answered monotonously, "We're in the lab right now." "Really? No wonder I can't locate you both… I heard the lab was literally, practically isolated, even its Wi-Fi is a separated system from the main building," said Larxene to herself. While they were busy talking, she had already got to the button. With a swift flip of her finger on the button, all lasers in the freezer room disappeared at once.

Now with all the lasers gone, all she needed to do was to examine the shadow she saw earlier. Upon closer inspection, the shadow turned out to be a glass egg with a size of a basketball, which contained a small bullet like thingy in it. But it was too freezing just to touch it, since she didn't wear gloves in the first place. She called out to Saïx to give her a hand, and he came over after glancing around. "So, this is it?" he asked her, which she shrugged and replied, "I guess, this was what those two people talked about after all…" Saïx then handed it to her, saying, "Then let's get out of here, we've been wasting too much time here than expected."

Larxene said, "Guys, I seriously can't locate you both, but once you all get out of the so-called lab, maybe I can establish the connection again." She asked Saïx, "Don't tell me we're going back via that tunnel we took earlier?" That tunnel's hole was at the ceiling. Also it wasn't guaranteed safe, since the guards would've rushed to Xehanort's office by now. They would be sitting ducks if they returned using the same way. Saïx said after contemplating, "I'll go check the doors those two use, you wait here." And then, he went off to the door at the far end corner of the lab. As soon as he made sure it was safe enough, he motioned for her to come over. He led her to a storeroom nearby and hid in it.

"Okay, what now?" she asked Saïx, shifting around in the narrow space of the storeroom. It's uncomfortable since she was never so close to a person of the opposite gender before. He said, "From what I observed, all escape routes have been sealed off. The only way we can do now is to jump off this building." She wished she was deaf at that moment. "… I hope you're not joking, because if you are, it's, _not_, funny, at all," she said as she stared at him with horror. But all he gave her was a serious face, nothing more. "Okay, you are not joking…" she sighed, and he said, "We have no choice left. So now, go rip off any curtains you come across and bring them here." Saïx planned to make a long "rope" by combining the curtains together.

After some excruciating search and the constant hide-and-seek with the now alerted guards, all they left was only one more curtain. She was trying to tear off the last one, while Saïx guarded the exit behind her, also holding the weapon. With a loud snap, the curtain dislocated from the window, but after she got up from her fall caused by pulling too hard, a guard's yell was heard, "I hear them! This way!" Saïx muttered, "Shoot, we're discovered." Larxene asked anxiously, "What just happened? I saw the guards are coming at you on the PC!" She grabbed his hand this time and said, "Run!" They rushed out of the hiding spot and had to take a detour to the storeroom. The guards were hot on their tails and she forced herself to increase her seemingly maxed speed. Fortunately Saïx took over the lead and right now he was literally dragging her behind him. He stopped at a T-junction, and he noticed the guards were coming from both ways, so he ignored the detour and headed the third way. Although they reached a dead end, but there was another room, so they hid inside again.

After she closed the door, she slumped down, feeling exhausted. It had been a while since she ran so fast. She tossed the curtain to the floor and said in between pants, "Hey… All the curtains… were back… there." "We'll have to get them… later," he answered, looking at the small window in the room. This one was spacious enough, with nothing but them inside, so she didn't have to squeeze with him like sardines in a tin. He took the curtain while passing her the weapon. She stared at the glass egg, feeling its coolness with her palms. Suddenly, the lights went on and blinded them temporarily, and through squinted eyes, she saw someone she didn't want to meet right now – Xehanort, well and alive. His face appeared at everywhere; the four walls, the ceiling, except for the floor. "Greetings, dear secret agents, I hope you had fun roaming around Memory's Skyscraper." His husky, evil voice sent shivers all over her poor spine, she trembled slightly while clutching onto the glass egg, with her eyes wide in horror. "Weren't you…?!" She could only manage to spit out two words.

"Dead? Ha! That was only a decoy, to lure you all into my trap. Do you think the security system is so easy to infiltrate so as to let you all to communicate with your intercom buddy?" With a snap of his finger, you could hear Larxene's gasp before the device emitted a buzzing noise, signaling the connection was cut off. Saïx's glare hardened at Xehanort, while Xehanort was still saying, "The plan began with toleration of slipping in, and then entrapment. And now we arrive at the third step; experimentation…" "What are you -" Saïx hissed through gritted teeth with his fists quivering with pumped anger. And she saw him pressed a button, cracking a menacing smile in the process.

And the next thing she knew, the glass egg in her hands vibrated with a beeping sound. The bullet inside flashed a vibrant red and some cracks formed on the glass. She didn't how to react, and before she knew it, Saïx shoved her away and all she heard was glass breaking and a thud, followed by water splashing the floor. She stared at what just happened before her; the glass egg was now the pieces of broken glass lying on the white floor, from about two meters from her, Saïx was pushing himself up from the floor. The bullet was on the floor, and water was on the floor around him. Even he was wet too. Well, she was okay, if she didn't include the fact that she almost had the living daylights freaked out of her.

"Saïx! Are you okay?" she finally found her voice, and he grunted in response, he wiped some of the liquid off of him, while glaring at Xehanort, saying, "What? That's all you got? Water?" She glared hard at him as well, but she frowned in confusion when she saw the devilish smirk on his face only grew wider. _What was he thinking?_

And when she heard Saïx's staggering footsteps and looked at him, she now knew the reason; somehow, Saïx was fading away. That wasn't logical, yes, but the edges of his cloak were disappearing, like sublimation of dry ice. And soon he collapsed to the ground. She summoned all her strength and rushed to him, kneeling down while shaking his shoulders. She yelled frantically, "H-hey! Don't you dare dying on me! Get a hold of yourself!" He managed to open his eyes and looked at her. All energy seemed to have left him, and he could hardly lift his hands. By the looks of it, his consciousness was fading fast, just like his being.

She tried to hold back the tears and he said breathlessly, "I got too… careless… So that's… that's what… they meant by… 'too normal… t-to distinguish'…" The weapon wasn't the bullet itself, but the liquid in it. One would easily mistake it as plain water. She shook her head and bury her head in his chest, crying her eyes out. She tried to find the diminishing warmth, wrapping her arms around him. "N-no! Don't leave me…" she kept repeating this phrase over and over again. He rested a palm on her head, ruffling her hair softly. He whispered, "Sorry… for being so… harsh to you… Geez, no wonder… they say… human only… knew to cherish… when they lost… something…"

She choked on her tears, "Please don't say that…" And she lifted her head to look at his face. She tried to force out a smile and said, "I'll get you out of h-here, alright? Please stay w-with me…" He lifted a hand to wipe her tears away, and finally resting on her face. For a moment, a tiny smile flashed on his face, and to her dismay, his eyelids were getting heavier by the minute. When they slipped closed, his hand fell from her face and lied limp on the ground. His breathing slowly came to a halt and the fading quickened. In three seconds, his entire body vanished, and evaporated. All she could see was her hands remaining in their position of supporting his body.

He faded away. He's gone. _Gone…_

And she didn't know what happened next, she charged right to the wall where Xehanort's face was and punched it and suddenly –

"BAM!" A deafening noise erupted somewhere and she fell to the floor. She didn't know what to do but to thrash around, until someone tried to grab her and say, "Wake up!" She snapped her eyes open, and behold, she was in her… bedroom? Wait, just wait a minute… She looked around frantically, and she saw her bed, from where she fell off of, and then the usual background came into view. And at last, she saw the person in front of her – Saïx. She couldn't speak, instead she stared at him. He looked like he was kicked out of bed in the middle of his sleep, his hair was slightly ruffled and he looked tired. He then let her arms go and rubbed his left cheek gently. "So… the noise earlier was… I punched him?" she thought. "Stop thrashing around like that… and don't punch random people… Ow…" he whispered, wincing every now and then to the stinging pain. She got up and pulled him up as well. She looked down at the floor. All those felt so real, even if it was just a nightmare.

"Bad dream?" asked Saïx, which she nodded. She still didn't look up at him. He sighed, scratching his head and a yawn escaped his mouth. He was just having a good night's sleep, when she started screaming in her room next to his. He had no choice but to see what was going on. And man, he had a hard time waking her up. Out of the blue, she closed in and hugged him tight, burying her head in his chest. Saïx tensed up, but gradually relaxed. He softly put a hand on her back and one at the back of her head. Thankfully this time he wasn't fading away. They stayed like that for a good few minutes, before she fell asleep again without her realizing.

He lied her down on her bed and put the blanket back on her. He stood beside her sleeping form, gazing down at her. And then, he leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. "Good night," he whispered. Saïx then let another yawn escaped his mouth again. "Well, since I get a day-off tomorrow, and I'm really tired right now…" he thought, and then he sat down on a chair beside her bed. He was planning to spend the night here. He took one more look at her and he sighed, letting himself drift off to somewhere in his dreams…

**The End**


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